Category Archives: Russian Imperial Stout

Friends of the show Deb and John took a trip to Indiana and ended up in Griffith where they discovered 2 of 3 great breweries in that town. Griffith is just over an hour from the Brit and Yankee pub here in the western suburbs, so very attainable as a day trip. Our friends visit Pokro Brewing and New Oberpfalz Brewing and return with 3 samples from each and report on the ambience to be found at each. Joining the pub crew and Deb and John, are listeners Big Dave and Big Nate for a final tasting panel of real consumers and craft beer fans.

Both of the breweries featured have a European flavor to their brews, Pokro specializing in Belgian, English and other European styles, and New Oberpfalz on German-influenced beers. We also have included an American IPA from each just to entice those who prefer that style.

By way of introduction, and because our first love is Illinois brews, we take a local brew from Noon Whistle that is a European style and make it our ‘warm-up’ brew, their Face Smack Berliner Weiss.

There’s plenty of pub chat, and the panel all have their own tastes so we think we got a pretty good representation of these breweries and the overall opinion is they are well worth visiting!

A friend of mine went out to Iowa and brought me back a couple of fuit-based brews and this prompted us to track down a couple more and give us the theme for this edition. Recorded down at Hopvine Brewing in Aurora, besides Mark and Phil, we welcome Chuck Fort from Church Street Brewing, and Hopvine’s very own head brewer, Ken McMullen. Rounding out this week’s guest is Alex Zapata from Fox Valley Homebrew and Wine Supplies, who has opened up their store right next to Hopvine.

We also try three varieties of Ken’s Ukranium Krusher, and while we taste and cogitate on these fine samples of Russian Imperial Stout, we have a somewhat confrontational discussion on beer can labels.

Our final segment focused on the new range of beers from Gun Craft Beer, which produce cans that feature guns on some of the labels. We discuss is this is a good thing, or perhaps it touches on the same area as some of the ‘sexist’ labels that have caused controversy. It could be that this is the end of the night, or perhaps its just good old pub chat, but thank goodness we live in a country where we can express our opinions freely – and drink damn good beer at the same time!

Metal Monkey Brewing opened their doors on Jan 30, 2016 down in south suburban Romeoville. Nearly one year on, head brewer Dan Camp and the rest of the Monkeys are getting ready to hold their 1-year Anniversary party.
We were here last for a podcast at the opening and since then Dan and crew have settled in and started to produce some really solid brews.
We discuss where they’ve been and where they are going, and hit a couple more topics like Shower Beer and what’s the best container for selling draft beer. Plus we sample some of the Monkey beers we haven’t tasted before and of course pass opinions that are only our simple, personal views.

Our first show for 2017, and it’s out with some old beers and in with some new. Phil brings 3 local brews that are new (well at least 2 are), and Mark shows up with a couple of older bottles he picked up in 2016. We recorded this show at our local tavern, John’s in Winfield, so we could check out the new handheld digital recorder.

First up we have a classic Belgium Trappist beer, apparently fairly rare in the US. Then it’s back to Illinois for our next three, a robust porter from Algonquin’s Scorched Earth Brewery, and two barrel-aged first editions from Alter Brewing in Downer’s Grove, and Metal Monkey in Romeoville respectively.

We finish up with one of the most expensive beers we have tasted, a 2016 barrel-aged winter ale from Fremont Brewing.

They’re all good in their own way, and it’s a great start for the stout fellows’ 2017!